''Sky Full of Holes'' is the fifth and final studio album by the American
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
Fountains of Wayne
Fountains of Wayne was an American rock band that formed in New York City in 1995. The band included founding members Chris Collingwood, Adam Schlesinger, Jody Porter, and Brian Young. They released five albums from 1996 to 2011 before e ...
. It was released on July 20, 2011, in
Japan, on August 1, 2011, in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, and on August 2, 2011, in
North America. It debuted at number 37 on the US ''Billboard'' 200, giving Fountains of Wayne their first Top 40 album on that chart, and debuted at number 16 on the UK independent chart.
Background
Prior to working on their fifth album, Fountains of Wayne had done acoustic tours that would eventually influence the direction they took for the record. According to guitarist
Jody Porter
Jody Porter (born May 25, 1969) is an American musician. He was the lead guitarist of Grammy Award-nominated power pop band Fountains of Wayne. The band released four major label albums, including ''Welcome Interstate Managers'' on Virgin Reco ...
, "It’s a little bit more introspective and not as loud of a record as the last two. I think that came from the fact that we started last year doing acoustic-based tours because we didn’t have a record out. We wanted to get back out on tour and did it stripped-down. Overall it’s not as brash or guitar-heavy."
Having taken a back seat to bassist
Adam Schlesinger
Adam Lyons Schlesinger (October 31, 1967 – April 1, 2020) was an American musician, songwriter, composer, and record producer. He was a founding member of the bands Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, and Tinted Windows, and was a key songwriting contri ...
during the writing and recording of previous album ''
Traffic and Weather'' due to personal health issues, lead singer and co-songwriter
Chris Collingwood
Chris Collingwood (born October 3, 1967) is an American singer, songwriter, and artist. He is best known as the former lead vocalist and founding member of the power pop band Fountains of Wayne.
Life and career
Collingwood was born in Britain a ...
became more involved this time around. Collingwood stated, "When we made the last record, I was not doing well in a lot of different ways, drunk a lot of the time. I didn’t contribute a whole lot to the last record, and I think we settled into a situation where Adam was taking control of a lot of things. I only wrote three songs on the previous Fountains of Wayne record, so when this one came along I had a lot more to bring. It was just a matter of bringing everything back into balance, and there was a lot of fighting about it."
During the making of the album, the relationship between Collingwood and Schlesinger had deteriorated to the point where they had to stop working and seek professional help. According to Collingwood in 2016, "Adam and I just fought constantly making that record. We stopped making that record in the middle of making that record to try to work out a whole bunch of things that were going on between us. We saw a psychiatrist and tried to work things out." In the end, they agreed to finish the album and tour behind it, before going their separate ways.
Reception
Jody Rosen
Jody Rosen (born June 21, 1969 in New York City) is an American journalist and author. He is a contributing writer for ''The New York Times Magazine''.
Career Journalism
Rosen served as critic-at-large for '' T: The New York Times Style Magaz ...
, writing in ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'', had high praise for the album, and said the storytelling was "sharp" and the guitar hooks "crunchy," with the overall direction of the album darker than previous outings. Jill Menze of ''
Billboard'' called the album "excellent", describing it as "a new minimal sound with a poppy, folk-leaning flair."
''Spin'' gave the album a score of 7/10. Critic Stacey Anderson writes, "'Sky' eschews the occasional decade-hopscotching of 2007's ''
Traffic and Weather'', reaching a new, raw sincerity and cohesiveness: 'Hate to See You Like This' is an anxious entreaty to a depressed girlfriend exquisitely framed by a dramatic backdrop of electric and acoustic guitars."
Chris Willman of ''
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was esta ...
'' also strongly recommended the album, but cautioned listeners: "It may be a moot point that the new effort is FOW's least airplay-friendly, since neither radio nor MTV would likely play this kind of stuff anymore even if the group did manage to come up with a '
Stacy's Mom
"Stacy's Mom" is a song by American rock band Fountains of Wayne. It is the third track on their third studio album, ''Welcome Interstate Managers'', and was released to radio as the album's first single on May 19, 2003, through S-Curve Recor ...
II.' But fans who prefer an abundance of power in their power-pop may worry about what the lopsided spunk-to-sadness ratio portends for the beloved band."
[Willman, Chris. "Review: Fountains of Wayne More Rueful on Fifth Album." ''Reuters.'' August 1, 2011.](_blank)
Accessed 2011-08-03. He called "Action Hero" the best track on the album.
Matt Diehl of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' lauded the album. "''Sky'' teems with immaculate power pop, spanning jangling Beatlesque rockers like “The Summer Place” through the bittersweet balladry of “I Hate to See You Like This”... It's a remarkably consistent album, full of snappy arrangements, surprising chord changes and tasteful instrumentation, but Collingwood's voice embodies its true appeal," he wrote. "That storytelling depth raises Fountains of Wayne to the apex of their genre, imparting a wry, cynical worldview that lingers well after the snap, crackle and fizz subsides."
Allison Stewart, reviewing the album for ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', was more mixed in her assessment. She said, "''Sky,'' with its carefully detailed stories of suburban schlubs, feuding bar owners and luckless
Acela riders, hits all the right notes, but something feels off. Slow and sentimental, more wistful than droll, ''Sky'' is as interested in loping, acoustic country-folk songs as it is in vigorous pop. If the band’s last album, 2007’s ''
Traffic and Weather,'' was a
Cars
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, people in ...
homage, ''Sky'' is an unofficial tribute to
the Jayhawks
The Jayhawks are an American alternative country and country rock band that emerged from the Twin Cities music scene in the mid-1980s. Led by vocalists/guitarists/songwriters Gary Louris and Mark Olson, their country rock sound was influential ...
. It’s not a misfire — one of its gentlest songs, “A Road Song,” is also one of the band's all-time finest — but those who expect the usual gimlet-eyed power pop (that is to say, most everyone) will be left wondering where it went."
[Stewart, Allison. "Album Review: Fountains of Wayne, 'Sky Full of Holes'." ''Washington Post.'' July 29, 2011.](_blank)
Accessed 2011-08-03.
In the United Kingdom, ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' critic Michael Hann described the album's music as "a more sedate sound, the dominant texture being acoustic guitar overlaid with muted electrics."
[Hann, Michael. "Fountains of Wayne: ''Sky Full of Holes'' – Review." ''The Guardian.'' 28 July 2011.](_blank)
Accessed 2011-08-03. But the sound was a good one for the band, he said, and named the final track, "Cemetery Guns," the album's best for being "beautifully arranged and written with calm understatement".
Covers
America covered "A Road Song" on their 2011 ''
Back Pages'' album.
Track listing
All songs written by
Chris Collingwood
Chris Collingwood (born October 3, 1967) is an American singer, songwriter, and artist. He is best known as the former lead vocalist and founding member of the power pop band Fountains of Wayne.
Life and career
Collingwood was born in Britain a ...
and
Adam Schlesinger
Adam Lyons Schlesinger (October 31, 1967 – April 1, 2020) was an American musician, songwriter, composer, and record producer. He was a founding member of the bands Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, and Tinted Windows, and was a key songwriting contri ...
, except where noted.
Personnel
;Fountains of Wayne
*
Chris Collingwood
Chris Collingwood (born October 3, 1967) is an American singer, songwriter, and artist. He is best known as the former lead vocalist and founding member of the power pop band Fountains of Wayne.
Life and career
Collingwood was born in Britain a ...
-
lead vocals, rhythm guitar,
keyboards,
production
Production may refer to:
Economics and business
* Production (economics)
* Production, the act of manufacturing goods
* Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services)
* Production as a stati ...
*
Jody Porter
Jody Porter (born May 25, 1969) is an American musician. He was the lead guitarist of Grammy Award-nominated power pop band Fountains of Wayne. The band released four major label albums, including ''Welcome Interstate Managers'' on Virgin Reco ...
-
lead guitar
Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featu ...
,
backing vocals
A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...
*
Adam Schlesinger
Adam Lyons Schlesinger (October 31, 1967 – April 1, 2020) was an American musician, songwriter, composer, and record producer. He was a founding member of the bands Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, and Tinted Windows, and was a key songwriting contri ...
-
bass,
rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, production
*
Brian Young -
drums,
percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...
;Additional Musicians
*Ronnie Buttacavoli -
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
*Garo Yellin -
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...
;Technical Personnel
* Arjun Agerwala -
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...
* Violeta Alvarez - photography
* Rudyard Lee Cullers - engineer
*
George Marino
George Marino (April 15, 1947 – June 4, 2012) was an American mastering engineer known for working on albums by rock bands starting in the late 1960s.
Biography
Marino was born on April 15, 1947, in the New York City borough The Bronx. He at ...
-
mastering
* Atsuo Matsumoto - assistant engineer
* Mike Nesci - assistant engineer
* Geoff Sanoff - engineer
* Adam Tilzer - assistant engineer
Chart performance
References
External links
''Sky Full of Holes''(deluxe) at
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
(streamed copy where licensed)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sky Full Of Holes
Album chart usages for Billboard200
Fountains of Wayne albums
2011 albums
Lojinx albums
Yep Roc Records albums
Albums produced by Adam Schlesinger